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Earth Today | Community workers get training in gender analysis, planning

Published:Thursday | June 8, 2023 | 12:41 AM
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Community liaison officers at the Caribbean Development Bank’s Basic Needs Trust Fund (from left): Jackie Allain (St Lucia), Cher Akoi (Suriname), and Cecil Browne (Montserrat) focus on their group activity during the gender training workshop in Barbados
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Community liaison officers at the Caribbean Development Bank’s Basic Needs Trust Fund (from left): Jackie Allain (St Lucia), Cher Akoi (Suriname), and Cecil Browne (Montserrat) focus on their group activity during the gender training workshop in Barbados.
Participants in CDB’s Basic Needs Trust Fund’s (BNTF) four-day regional gender training workshop, held recently in Barbados, with Dr Maria Ziegler (left), gender specialist at the CDB, and George Yearwood (back row, centre), portfolio manager at the BN
Contributed
Participants in CDB’s Basic Needs Trust Fund’s (BNTF) four-day regional gender training workshop, held recently in Barbados, with Dr Maria Ziegler (left), gender specialist at the CDB, and George Yearwood (back row, centre), portfolio manager at the BNTF.
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THE CARIBBEAN Development Bank’s (CDB’s) Basic Needs Trust Fund (BNTF) recently hosted training on gender analysis, gender action planning, and mainstreaming gender to support its work in the region.

Done out of a recognition of the importance of gender equality for poverty alleviation and sustainable development, the beneficiaries were community liaison officers from nine BNTF participating countries.

The focus was on using gender analytical frameworks and preparing gender action plans to mainstream gender in BNTF operations.

“Through this training we are strengthening the capacity of our team members regionally to fully ensure that the differentiated needs of men, women, boys and girls are addressed, and that they benefit equally from our projects,” said George Yearwood, portfolio manager of the BNTF.

The BNTF programme is the main vehicle of the CDB for pursuing direct poverty reduction in the Caribbean. It responds to needs identified by the most vulnerable communities in the priority areas of water and sanitation, education and livelihoods enhancement, and access and drainage to improve the quality of life of beneficiaries in its nine participating countries. Climate change and gender are cross-cutting themes for the programme.

“For BNTF and CDB, gender equality is a very important cross-cutting theme. Every initiative can potentially impact on gender equality and, therefore, we need to avoid maintaining structural gender biases. We must use the opportunities to enhance equality and to transform lives for women and men,” noted Martin Baptiste, division chief for the Projects Department at the CDB.

The participants were from Belize, Dominica, Grenada, Guyana, Jamaica, Montserrat, St Lucia, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Suriname. The workshop was held at the CDB’s headquarters in Barbados.

In the more than 40 years since it was established, the BNTF has implemented more than 3,000 sub-projects, which have directly impacted the lives of more than three million men, women and children.